'Eleven exactly. Eleven, same as it said on the news, which was why I thought you ought to know.'
'So what you're suggesting is, the English could have murdered those girls.'
'The dates tally, don't they? And there was motive enough.'
'You could be right, although it isn't going to be easy to prove anything. I can't see the British Army giving me much assistance, can you?'
'Somebody must know what happened,' put in Eugene. 'If those girls were taken by official order, that order must be somewhere on file, even after all these years. And even if they were taken unofficially, don't tell me that nobody ever spoke about it or wrote about it.'
'Long shot,' said Liam. '
Katie thought about mentioning the rag dolls, in case they, too, rang a bell; but then she decided against it. The dolls were the only way she had of authenticating any evidence she was given.
'I don't suppose your great-uncle kept a diary of his experiences,' she said.
The old man gave another sniff. 'Couldn't write. My father was the very first man in our family who was educated, God bless his memory. Very proud of it he was, too. And that's why he made sure that I was given the gift of language.'
'I know who you are now,' said Katie. 'Jack Devitt.
The old man smiled, and raised his glass to her. 'You're a very fine young lady. 'Tis a fierce pity you're a cop.'
They left Eugene O Beara and Jack Devitt to their drinks, and elbowed their way out of The Crow Bar into the gray, bright street outside. Steam was rising from the chimneys of Murphy's Brewery and there was a pungent smell of malt and hops in the air, like the fumes from a crematorium.
'What do you think?' asked Liam, as they crossed over to Katie's Mondeo. 'Accurate vernacular history or load of old Fenian codswallop?'
'I don't know. But I want you to initiate a search for anything that will tell us more about those eleven disappearances. Have Patrick go through the old police records and the newspaper morgues. Let's see if we can find out what the women's names were, and if any of them still have family that we can trace. If Devitt is correct, we should be able to confirm their identity through DNA tests.'
'Okay, boss.'
'I also want the deeds and titles of Meagher's Farm, going back as far as you can. I'd like to know who owned that property, back in 1915.'
'I'll bet you money it was an Englishman.'
11
After she had dropped Liam in the city center, Katie drove to Monkstown to see her father. Monkstown stood on the western bank of Cork Harbor, and if she looked across the half-mile stretch of water to Cobh, she could see the dark elm trees that surrounded her own house on the eastern side. It was drizzling, and the ferry that plied between Monkstown and Cobh was barely visible in the mist.
Her father owned a tall pale-green Victorian house that was perched on a hill with a fine harbor view. He kept a pair of binoculars in the bedroom so that he could watch the ocean liners and the cruise ships coming in and out. Since Katie's mother had died, though, two years ago last July, the house had seemed damper and colder every time she visited it, and it seemed to Katie that her mother's ghost had left it forever.
Paul had gone along the coast to Youghal 'to sort out a bit of business,' so Katie had called her father and offered to cook him a lamb stew, which had always been one of his favorites, and one of her mother's specialties. Katie had always loved cooking, especially Irish traditional cooking, and if she hadn't joined the Garda she would have taken a cookery course at Ballymaloe House and opened her own restaurant. But none of her six brothers had wanted to be gardai, and she alone had seen how deep her father's disappointment was. When she had told him that she was going to carry on the McCarthy family tradition, and sign up for Templemore, his eyes had promptly filled up with tears.
She parked her car in the roadway by the gate, and climbed the steep steps to the front door. The drizzle was coming in soft and heavy now, and the front garden was dripping, with shriveled wisteria and long-dead dahlias. There was grass growing through the shingle path. When her mother was alive, the garden had always been immaculate.
Her father took a long time to answer the door, and when he did it seemed for a moment that he didn't recognize her. He was a small man-bent-backed now, and painfully thin, with wriggling veins on his forehead and his hands. He wore a baggy beige cardigan and worn-out corduroy slippers.
'Well, you came,' he said, as if he were surprised.
'I said I was going to come, didn't I?'
'You did. But sometimes you give me the feeling that you're going to come and then you don't.'
'Dad, I didn't just give you the feeling this time. I called you.'
'So what are you doing on the doorstep?'
'I'm getting rain down the back of my neck and I'm waiting for you to invite me in.'
'You don't need an invitation, Katie. This is your house, too.'
She stepped into the large, gloomy hallway. The smell of damp was even worse than the last time she had visited, in September. There were two old chaise-longues on either side of the hallway, and a slow, lugubrious long-case clock. A wide, curving staircase led up to the upper floors. There were no flowers anywhere.
She kissed him. His cheek was patchy and prickly, as if he hadn't been shaving properly. 'How are you keeping?' she asked him. 'Are you eating properly?'
